building a stylish home, one paycheck at a time

September 3, 2015January 23, 2016

tutorial: entryway system

In January 2011 we had sheetrock, heat, and Wonderboard for floors. And not much else. Every morning leaving for work, we had our purses, wallets and keys dumped on this table. Every evening we dumped our things back onto this little table and dumped our shoes underneath.

Fortunately, I found this really awesome blogger – she’s a homemaker who builds her own furniture! My hero! I found her plans for an entryway system and they were super easy! So I got to work.

It was a ton of sanding. I think it made my arms toner.

We painted the walls before we got started on the flooring. That saves some messiness and extra steps with painting prep, like using a ton of drop cloths. You can see my big splotches in some of these after shots. And yes, that is a throw blanket staged as a rug.

The shelves screwed easily into the wall at the studs. We’re not sure we’d trust something this heavy hanging on the wall just using mollies in the sheet rock.

The entryway system plans are very straightforward and explicit. It took me several days to build it, most of the work tied up in sanding and priming and painting enough coats to get it glossy enough for my liking.